


Catching On

by JB Harris (LizAna)



Series: The Janto Files [7]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Episode: s02e01 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Feels, Kissing, M/M, Mild Smut, Reunion Sex, What Happened After, janto, there is always kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-20 15:30:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14264079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizAna/pseuds/JB%20Harris
Summary: Set immediately post Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Ianto and Jack working through things since Jack has dropped back into his life as abruptly as he left it. Feels. Ianto comforting Jack. Mentions of The Year That Never Was. And kissing. There's almost always kissing.





	1. Chapter 1

Jack held out the swipe cards for the rooms as Gwen, Tosh and Owen came forward one at a time to take them from his hands. They all looked wrung-out, Gwen scruffed up from being attached to John Hart; first getting tossed to the ground when he’d tackled them to inject the combined Torchwood DNA into John’s heart to confuse the bomb attached to his chest, and then moments later, she’d been thrown to the ground again from the explosion.

Owen’s clothes were bloody and torn, he probably needed a hospital since John had shot him, not a fancy hotel. Meanwhile Tosh just looked wilted. They definitely didn’t run with the usual clientele this five-star hotel catered for.

They said their good nights, the day’s circumstance and probably the fact he’d dropped back into their lives after disappearing without a word four months ago meaning none of them were overly enthusiastic about the luxury suites he’d procured for them.

Once they’d headed for the elevator, he was left standing with Ianto and a single room card. Ianto was staring at him guardedly, the same way he’d been regarding him ever since they’d said their goodbyes to John Hart on the rooftop of the car park. In fact, Ianto had been looking at him with various degrees of wariness ever since he’d gotten back, as if he didn’t know what to think about anything that had happened. Especially the whole date-thing. Jack supposed he couldn’t blame him. After an entire year away—for him, anyway—after spending all that time locked up on the Valiant and tortured by the Master, this hadn’t been the homecoming he’d dreamt about. Not the debacle with John Hart, nor John’s parting words about finding Grey. As if he wasn’t already reeling, those simple words had nearly sent him to his knees.

“I’m not staying, Jack,” Ianto finally said, glancing away from him.

“This room isn’t for us. It’s for you. I won’t come up, I wasn’t planning on sleeping tonight.” Or ever again, considering the nightmares that swamped him every time he closed his eyes.

Ianto’s expression tightened as his jaw clenched, and Jack wondered if he was going to ask him what he planned on doing if he wasn’t going to sleep. But he didn’t say anything, instead he dragged a hand through his hair, looking exhausted all of a sudden.

“Then you’ll have to see if you can get your money back, because I’m not staying here, I’m going home.”

“What about—”

“Avoiding myself?” He gave a hollow laugh. “That won’t be a problem since I was either at the hub or running around on John Hart’s wild goose chase for bombs that didn’t exist the entire night. I definitely didn’t go home.”

“Can I at least give you a ride then?” Once again, he was struck by an uncharacteristic bout of nerves, just like when he’d asked Ianto out on the date earlier. Ianto had agreed, but it still felt like so much stood between them. Since he’d gotten back to Cardiff he’d been struggling to keep his usual mask of charm and bravado in place, one thing after another throwing him off-kilter. Gwen’s engagement, John Hart turning up and causing absolute chaos, then tossing out that remark about Grey right as he stepped into the rift. It had to be a con. A ploy to get Jack to go after him. Grey was gone. He’d been gone for a long time. God knew Jack had done everything in his power to find his younger brother. 

He’d planned to let Ianto have the room, give him some space, go find a rooftop to get some perspective like he always did, bring up the date again tomorrow or the next day when things were less… raw. The problem was, standing there looking at Ianto, remembering how much he’d missed him, how some days his entire body had ached with the yearning to simply see him again, he didn’t want to be alone. Not now, maybe not ever.

After Abaddon, he’d realised he wanted more with Ianto than just a convenient body and casual shag, that he actually needed Ianto in so many small ways. But over those endless days and weeks and months when he’d been chained up and killed over and over for no other reason than entertainment, it’d all crystalized; the depth of his feelings, what he wanted with Ianto, the way he needed Ianto so much more than he’d let himself see.

For the last months before the Doctor had finally enacted his plan and time had reset, he’d thought Ianto and the rest of the team were probably dead. The Master had sent them on some kind of fake assignment to the Himalayas to keep them out of the way when he’d initially launched his plan. Part of his torture had featured the Master coming in and giving him updates about how they were trying to get back to Cardiff, but helping where they could along the way. The Master had told him more than once that they’d been killed, in a variety of gruesome ways, but then he’d come back the next day and tell Jack it hadn’t been true, that the team were still alive and fighting, then the following week the game would start all over again with yet another tale of their demise.

The last time, the Master had told him he was personally going to make sure his “children” took care of Torchwood Three once and for all. Jack had refused to believe the final story, that after nearly eight months they’d made it back to Cardiff, only to get cut down on the Plass before they could reach the safety of the Hub. Despite refusing to believe it, the Master had stopped coming to him with stories of the team, stopped taunting him with different scenarios of their deaths, and Jack had cried in the deep dark of many nights, trying desperately not to think Ianto and the others were gone forever.  

When time had reset, it had been a miracle for the entire world, but Jack had only been able to think of getting home. _Home_. Back home to Ianto. Back to his team. After seeing the world end, living a literal hell of torture, death and humiliation, he craved a small slice of normal. Or, as close to normal as an immortal Time Agent from the 51 st century could get, anyway. That was why he’d asked Ianto out on the date. Because Ianto was his normal. Ianto grounded him. Ianto saw him for everything he was and still cared for him, still accepted him. It was a rare gift he didn’t plan on squandering. Not a second time, anyway.

“Jack?” He focused on Ianto, not even realising he’d completely zoned out until he heard the note of concern in Ianto’s voice, as if that wasn’t the first time he’d said his name. Ianto had come over to stand right in front of him, blue eyes dark with worry. “Are you okay?”

Usually he would have flippantly replied of course, he was fine. But now that the others were gone and it was just Ianto, he found he couldn’t keep the mask in place anymore. He wordlessly shook his head, fighting to keep the emotion at bay, not wanting to break down right there in the foyer of the most expensive hotel in Cardiff.

Ianto muttered a curse and took his arm, leading him to the lifts. But instead of going up, they went down to the parking garage. Ianto fished the keys to the SUV out of Jack’s coat pocket, then opened the passenger door for him.

He got in, aching all over like he had so many times on the Valiant after the Master was through with him for the day. Neither of them said anything as they drove through the dark streets of the city. By the time they stepped through the doorway of Ianto’s flat, Jack was feeling completely battered. Ianto gently pulled his coat from his shoulders and as the familiarity of it washed over him, it clashed into the nightmares and memories, to the times he thought he’d never stand here again.

He took a hard breath, but it caught in his chest. He was fighting to stay afloat, to not succumb to the things he’d vowed to leave behind when he’d left the Valiant. Ianto came around to stand in front of him and froze when he saw him. He carefully reached out, as though worried about startling him.

“Jack?” he whispered, confusion and apprehension in his voice. “You’re really not okay, are you?”

He couldn’t reply, couldn’t move. Too afraid that if he did, he’d fall apart and wouldn’t ever be okay again. After staying strong, resilient, not breaking no matter what the Master did to him, believing that one way or another, the Doctor would come through, now when he was finally safe in the one place he wanted to be more than anywhere in the entire universe, he was closer than ever to crumbling.

Ianto took his hand, not saying anything as he led him to the bathroom, started the shower and stripped both of them off. Jack let himself get hustled in. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he should have been making one of his trademark comments or taking advantage of Ianto naked and wet, but right then it was all he could do to stay upright.

Ianto gently and tenderly cleaned him all over, hands lingering, fingers working his muscles. His touch wasn’t overtly sexual, but every stroke spoke of affection, Ianto telling him without words that he was here, and that he cared, and that Jack wasn’t alone.

After, they climbed into Ianto’s bed together. Jack didn’t want to go to sleep, didn’t even want to close his eyes, but Ianto was clearly exhausted. Ianto wrapped himself around Jack, and within a few minutes, his breathing evened out as he fell asleep.

Jack laid there, staring into the shadows cast across the ceiling from the street lamps outside the window, letting the reality of being here, of feeling Ianto warm and solid against him sink into his very being. He almost couldn’t believe it, fearing he’d wake up and find himself still chained up on the Valiant, facing another round of torture punctuated by death at the hands of the Master.

He forced himself to close his eyes just to prove he could. Besides, the peace and comfort of being in Ianto’s arms was steadily but surely taking over all the cold places inside him. It’d been a year since he’d had a proper night’s sleep, and even though he didn’t need it as much as normal people, he knew his body was craving the deep rest of sleeping somewhere safe and soundly. Maybe, with Ianto holding him tight, the nightmares would stay away. For a few hours at least.


	2. Chapter 2

A pained yell startled Ianto out of sleep and he sat up, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. It took his brain a moment to realised Jack was writhing in the bed next to him, a low keening sound of absolute despair and agony escaping him, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He’d witnessed Jack’s nightmares before, but he’d never seen anything like this.

“Jack.” He reached down and shook his shoulder, but Jack flinched away from him, as though afraid of getting hurt.

Heart aching and pounding fast in his chest, he wrapped both arms around Jack and hauled him close, holding him tightly as Jack trembled against him, his face wet with tears.

“Jack, wake up. _Please_ , wake up.”

He didn’t know what the hell had happened to Jack while he’d been gone for the past four months, but clearly it’d traumatised him. Jack had already been through a lot in his long lifetime, and Ianto had often been in awe of the man’s resilience—not that he knew much about any of it, Jack did like his secrets, after all. But there’d always been a deeply buried shadow of pain within Jack that most others couldn’t see, even though Ianto had recognised it almost from the start. Tonight however, once the others had gone up to their rooms at the hotel, the anguish he’d seen in Jack’s eye had been so much deeper and more frightening than anything Ianto had seen before Jack had left. Something had changed within Jack, and he’d gotten a hint of it when Jack had seemed uncharacteristically nervous asking him out on the date. When they’d stepped into his flat earlier, the truth of Jack’s emotional state had been obvious; he’d thought for sure that Jack was quite simply going to break down.

Though the need to ask what had happened burned within him, he’d forced himself to stay quiet and take care of Jack, knowing his actions would be a far more effective balm than words could ever be. Bedsides, he’d never been much of a talker and worried that even if Jack told him, he wouldn’t know the right thing to say.

Now, however, he was wondering if he shouldn’t have gotten Jack to explain even just a little of what had been so clearly haunting him.

Leaning down, he gently touched his lips to Jack’s in a light, tender kiss, tasting his tears, feeling the way his breath hitched. Jack finally went still in his arms, so Ianto increased the pressure of his mouth, feeling the tension in Jack’s body lessen as he finally came out of the nightmare.

“Ianto?” he whispered, the word broken and sounding lost.

“I’m here.” He smoothed a hand through Jack’s hair. “You’re safe, it’s just us.”

Jack took a sharp breath and scrambled out of his arms. For a second, Ianto just stared after him as Jack got out of bed, grabbing his pants and t-shirt before hurrying from the room.

Ianto got up and pulled on some tracksuit bottoms and went after him, worried he was leaving altogether. Except he found Jack in his kitchen, pouring himself a glass of scotch with shaking hands.

“Jack?”

“I’m fine,” he replied, though the tremor in his voice said otherwise. He tossed back the scotch and then closed his eyes, expression tense, like he was fighting some kind of mental battle.

Ianto slid his hands into the pockets of the tracksuit and walked closer, going over to lean against the bench next to him.

“You know, while you were gone, I nearly got eaten by a giant rat that also happened to be glowing bright purple.”

The distraction worked, because Jack snapped his eyes open to look at him in confusion.

“What?”

“It’s true,” he said with a nod. “A few rats had gotten into one of the containment boxes and eaten some kind of alien plasma. The result was glowing purple rodents with an insatiable appetite. It was one of the more interesting days we had. Especially since Myfawny saved me in the end. Knew a pet dinosaur would come in handy.”

Jack gave a quick laugh, but it sounded hollow. At least he didn’t look so ragged any longer. “Anything else I should know about?”

“It’ll all be there in the reports, whenever you get around to reading them,” he replied with a shrug. What wouldn’t be in the reports was how much they’d struggled, how long it had taken them to find their footing without him, the mistakes and near misses and days when he’d thought everything—but mostly himself—was going to fall apart. But he hadn’t. They hadn’t. They were stronger for it. So if anything good came out of Jack abandoning them without a word, that had to be it.

He wanted so badly to ask Jack where he’d gone, what he’d done, why he hadn’t contacted them at all over those months, but he didn’t know what to do with this new, more vulnerable side of Jack. He was almost fragile, and that was something Ianto wouldn’t have ever thought to associate with the larger-than-life captain.

Jack nodded absently and poured himself another scotch, before putting the bottle away again. “You should head back to bed, I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“You’re not coming, then?”

He’d never imagined he’d end up in bed with Jack the very night he’d come back again. In fact, he’d sternly told himself that was very definitely not going to happen. Except his reasonings had all been about not wanting to immediately shag each other senseless like nothing had happened, because while Jack had been gone, he’d been hit with the very confronting truth of exactly how deep his feelings for this man had become. He needed to tread carefully, because he didn’t want to get hurt. Yet Jack asking him out on a date had been about the last thing he’d expected. And even though he was now asking Jack to come back to bed, sex wasn’t necessarily on either of their minds.

Jack drank the scotch in one long swallow, then shuddered. “I’ve slept enough tonight.”

He wasn’t sure if that was Jack trying to hint that he wanted to be alone, or Jack was thinking Ianto needed sleep and was trying to do the right thing, even if he’d rather have the company.

He sighed, because he was too damn tired to work out Jack Harkness tonight and as it’d been four months since he’d had to do it, he was probably a bit out of practice. Instead of saying anything, he shifted around to hug Jack from behind, since he was still standing there facing the bench, holding the empty glass as if debating whether he wanted another scotch.

Jack went still and Ianto tried not to wonder about it. He leaned in and kissed him gently on the neck. “You know where to find me if you need anything.”

He let his arms drop away as he stepped back, but when he turned to walk away, Jack suddenly spun around and grabbed him, yanking him in tightly like he was holding on for dear life. Ianto wrapped him close as Jack buried his face in his neck.

“I need you,” Jack whispered.

“You’ve got me, Jack. All of me,” he murmured, knowing he was admitting so much with those words, but saying them felt right. Just like holding Jack. Just like everything with Jack from the beginning. Like this was the one place in the entire universe he truly belonged. “God, I missed you.”

Jack pulled back to look at him. “Ianto, when I left, I thought I was going to be gone a few hours at the most. If I could have come back sooner, if I could have let you know, I would have. I never meant for any of this to happen—”

“I know.” And he did. It didn’t make it hurt any less, but he understood in a way the rest of the team hadn’t. “The Doctor landed at the base of the water tower. I saw the CCTV footage on the Plass.”

“The others—”

“Don’t know anything,” he assured him. “I deleted the footage and I never said a word to them about it.”

“Why?” Jack asked in a low voice, searching his features as if his expression alone would provide the answers.

“Truthfully, I don’t know. No reason and a lot of reasons.” He wasn’t sure how to explain the impulsive decision when he didn’t even understand it himself. “You deflected, earlier today, when Owen asked if the Doctor had fixed you.”

Jack nodded, but didn’t reply.

“You were hoping he could make you mortal again, and he couldn’t. You’re stuck like this.”

“I’m a fixed point in time and space.” Jack pulled away from him, a note of grim humour in his voice. “I’m wrong. An impossible thing.”

“What?”

“That’s what he said, the Doctor. Could barely look at me at first. When I became like this, I was with the Doctor. I was killed by a Dalek and then next thing I knew, something had dragged me back. I went after the Doctor, but he was already gone. I thought he couldn’t have known that I’d survived, that he didn’t leave me behind, alone on a station full of death on purpose. But he did know. He knew and he ran as far and fast as he could. And while I spent one hundred and forty years trying to find him again, he was doing everything in his power to avoid me.”

“Jack—” He reached out, wanting to comfort him, hating that someone Jack clearly cared about had treated him so badly. That Jack was so obviously heartbroken about this. But Jack waved him off to take up pacing.

“I was going to come right back to you, get him to drop me an hour or two after I left, but everything went to hell.”

“What happened?” he asked quietly, finally letting out the question that had been burning like acid inside him all night.

“The world ended.” Jack shook his head, gaze distant as if he was seeing something else, not Ianto’s kitchen. “The world ended and I spent a year locked up being a tortured. Being killed over and over in ways I’d never even imagined.”

Ianto swallowed the sudden tightness in his throat, not sure which part of that to focus on. The fact that it’d been a year for Jack, or that he’d been tortured nearly the entire time he’d been gone, or that he’d died countless deaths. All that time they’d been angry and thinking of themselves and what Jack had done to them, they’d never once considered that Jack truly might be in trouble. Or, if they had, it was easier to push it down and believe he was fine, because even if they had thought Jack needed help, there wasn’t anything they could have done about it.

“The world ended?” he clarified, since it seemed like the least loaded point of everything he’d said.

“Harold Saxon wasn’t who he said. He created a paradox machine and destroyed the world. It took a year, but when we finally fixed it, time reset to just before the paradox began. No one in the world will ever remember that year, apart from those of us who were on the Valiant.”

“The Valiant? You mean when Harold Saxon and the US president were killed? That was you?”

Ianto shifted over to sit down, feeling a little dazed. All that time, he’d assumed Jack was somewhere out in the galaxy, in a whole other time, but he’d been right here on Earth, held prisoner on the Valiant.

“And I lived a whole year I don’t remember?”

Jack came over and crouched in front of him, expression pinched. “I’m glad you can’t remember, Ianto. It was hell. I don’t know exactly what happened to you and the rest of the team. He told me he sent you to the Himalayas so you’d be out of the way—”

“That’s what it was!” He straightened in his seat, pieces coming together in his mind. “Tosh recorded some kind of world-wide temporal disturbance, but we could never work out what caused it.”

“Time resetting,” Jack said with a nod. “Erasing every bad thing that happened.”

Ianto reached out and cupped a hand to Jack’s face. “Not every bad thing. You still remember.”

Jack took a ragged breath and closed his eyes. “Someone needs to remember.”

It was so like Jack, taking on the responsibilities of the world, no matter the cost to himself.

“I’d do anything to take that pain away.” Ianto knew exactly what he was saying; the significance of it. And clearly Jack realised as well as he opened his eyes to look at him, emotion burning in his gaze. Jack had told him the same thing the first night they’d slept together, after Ianto had admitted to feeling broken.

Slowly, he leaned in and caught Jack’s lips with his own. After everything Jack had been through, he wasn’t sure what Jack wanted or needed. But Jack had always been a tactile person, had always given and taken comfort through touch. And though he’d vowed to take things slow when Jack came back, to make sure things were clear between them before they physically picked up where they’d left off, he couldn’t have ever guessed that Jack had gone through such a traumatic experience. What he’d assumed and thought for the past four months didn’t matter in the face of what Jack had been through. It didn’t negate what he’d felt—the hollow ache inside him of feeling completely abandoned, the worry and pain in wondering if Jack would ever come back—and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever get over the apprehension that Jack would simply disappear on him again one day. But right now, he didn’t want any of that to come between them. In fact, he didn’t want anything to stand between them at all; not physically and not emotionally.

He broke the kiss to look at Jack, trying to gauge his mood, whether he wanted to take things further or have some space.

“Come back to bed?” he asked, an unaccountable swell of nerves tripping through him.

Jack gave a single nod and got to his feet. Ianto led the way, but when they stepped through his bedroom door, Jack suddenly had him up against the wall, kissing him hungrily. It was like a switch had been flipped, like the emotions Jack had been holding on to so tightly were suddenly unleashed and this was how he was going to expend them—utter abandon in passion.

Ianto let him take the lead, even though he wanted nothing more than to shove Jack down on the bed and take him hard and fast—to work out every lonely moment, every second of doubt, every time he’d gotten that ache in his chest from missing him. Instead, he kissed Jack desperately in return, clamping his hands onto Jack’s arse and pulling him in tighter.

Jack groaned when their erections pressed together through their clothes, pinning him harder into the wall as he rocked against him. Apparently, when one was shagging Jack Harkness, four months was a long time, and now, the simple feel of Jack all over him was almost enough to make him come right there and then.

Jack pulled away at the last second, leaving him gasping, especially as Jack yanked down his track pants and spun him around. He braced his palms flat against the cool wall, an almost shocking contrast to all the heat building up inside him.

Behind him, he heard the familiar sound of Jack’s belt being unbuckled, and it sent a shudder through him from his head to his toes. A moment later, Jack’s clever fingers were doing all kinds of things that were making his insides melt, making him incoherent and barely able to hold himself up. But just as he was about ready to beg for Jack to just take him already, Jack suddenly pulled away, leaving him sagging against the wall, trying to catch his breath.

“No,” Jack murmured. “Not like this.”

Jack gently pulled him away from the wall and took him over to the bed, urging him to lay back. Ianto relaxed into the duvet, already completely undone even though he knew Jack was far from finished with him. Jack pushed his knees wide and settled between his thighs, then leaned down to kiss him. Though the passion was still there, the wildness had abated to be replace by tenderness. And when Jack slid into him, emotion caught hard in his chest, leaving him calling out Jack’s name.

It didn’t last long; too much time and distance had passed between them for it to be anything but short and explosive. A few hard thrusts and Jack was shuddering against him. Seeing, hearing, feeling Jack come deep inside him was all it took for Ianto follow him over the edge a second later. As a few pleasant after-shocks ebbed away, Ianto pulled Jack down when he would have moved off him. He held Jack close, relishing in the weight and warmth of the other man on top of him when he’d missed it so acutely so many nights.

“So,” Ianto said, drawing out the word. “About that date…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping to possibly write another kind-of follow up after this when they go on their first date, but not sure when I'll get around to it. Title at the moment is Same, But Different, though not sure if that'll stick. In the meantime, I hope you've enjoyed these stories!


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